October 2023 Minutes
UM President’s Council of Retired Employees
umaine.edu/retirees
October 6, 2023
8:15–9:14
Minutes
Foster Board Room, second floor Buchanan Alumni House, and Zoom
Attendees: Louis Bassano, Richard Borgman (Vice Chair), Brenda Collamore, Cindy Eves-Thomas, Richard Kent, Sarah McPartland-Good (ex-officio), Gail Werrbach.
Guest: Marian Dressler (former member).
Absent: Tom Sandford (chair), Richard Judd (Secretary), David Bagley, Diane Dunn (ex-officio).
Call to Order: Vice Chair Rick Borgman called the meeting to order at 8:15 a.m.
1. Minutes: The committee unanimously approved the minutes from September 8, 2023, with a single change to correct Marian’s name.
2. Schooner Olad feedback. There were two people at the meeting who took the schooner trip—Louis and Marian. Their consensus was that the trip was a success. Iffy weather cleared just in time for the launch. Louis had a parking issue, but otherwise it was a wonderful event. It was suggested that we do the schooner trip again.
Rick asked if there were any other ideas for the future. In the past the wine tour was a success.
We’ll return to the topic next month.
3. Membership:
Tom had nominated Claire Strickland for membership (as member at large). The committee unanimously approved a motion to recommend to the President that she approve Claire for membership and send her an acceptance letter.
4. Retiree Homecoming update:
The Homecoming will be Friday June 14, 2024 at Wells. Becca from Event Planning has reserved the location. The second Friday in June will likely be the default date going forward, unless there are conflicts. Special Olympics is the first weekend in June (almost) every year.
Rick indicated that he did not wish to lead the planning for the 2024 Homecoming. He suggested a small planning committee might be a good approach (as it was in the past). Someone will have to take the lead. We’ll return to this next month.
Speaker for the homecoming:
Habib Dagher was well received last June.
Last month Athletic Director Jude Killy was floated as a potential speaker. Rick could not find anyone who had heard him speak, but it is assumed an AD would be experienced. So he is a candidate.
In addition, the people Rick spoke to about Jude suggested someone from the Climate Change Institute. The committee liked this idea. Director and Professor Paul Mayewski was recently on the radio show Maine Calling and would be good. Others from the Institute suggested were Ivan Fernandez (Louis has heard him and he is good) and Karl Kreutz. It may be a matter of who is available. Rick also suggested Dan Sandweiss. Dan has done a lot of archeological work in South America and is affiliated with the Climate Change Institute. He was the 2022 Distinguished Maine Professor and has held numerous positions on campus.
We will return to this topic.
5. Call for Hikel Award nominations. We had agreed last meeting to have the President send out the request for nominations for the Hikel Award in October (this month). Tom will work with Diane Dunn and the President.
6. Guest Marian Dressler and the Oral History Project.
Marian has been involved with the Oral History Project from the beginning, and she provided a review of its history and process. The All-Maine Women conduct the interviews, usually in January, at Buchanan where there is also a social (PCRE members asked to attend). All-Maine Women write the questions. However, PCRE can make suggestions and discuss. In addition to the interview videos posted online, the All-Maine Women edit the interviews for a video that is shown at the Retiree Homecoming.
PCRE selects the retirees to be interviewed (4). We will need a point person to coordinate with All-Maine Women. The third party involved is the Special Collections librarian where the interviews are stored.
Marian is available to offer advice and some help.
One suggestion for an interview possibility made at the meeting was Walt Abbott. Another suggestion was to have a questionnaire at Homecoming where retirees could write some reflections that would perhaps aid in selection.
7. New Business:
Website: Cindy has been working to follow the UMaine procedures and training to gain access to our website. She will work with Tom on improvements. She has reviewed the site and has created a list of things that need to be addressed.
Meeting adjourned at 9:14 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Rick Borgman